1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a method for manufacturing chips on the basis of a semiconductor substrate, in which at least one diaphragm is produced in the surface layer of the substrate, spanning a cavity, in which the functionality of the chip is integrated into the diaphragm, and in which the diaphragm is detached from the substrate composite in order to separate the chip.
2. Description of Related Art
Such a method for manufacturing and separating semiconductor chips is described in published German patent application document DE 103 50 036 A1. The known method provides for diaphragm areas to be produced in the surface of a semiconductor substrate, making use of surface micromechanical processes, each diaphragm area spanning a cavity and being joined to the substrate lying below it only via support points. The surface of the semiconductor substrate is then further processed in order to implement the desired chip functionality on the individual diaphragm areas. The chips are separated in two steps. In the first step the chips are detached at their sides from the composite. For that purpose, etched trenches running into the cavities below the diaphragm areas are produced. Not until the second step are the chips detached from the substrate lying below them, by the support points being snapped off in a mechanical pick-and-place step. In contrast to a sawing process, in this case the chips are thus separated not serially but in parallel, without any action of water and without contaminating particles occurring which could settle in the structure of the chip. The method known from published German patent application document DE 103 50 036 is thus also suitable for manufacturing very thin chips of any desired shape.